


Heley's Haunt

by Philtatos



Series: Dream Sequence [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Demon Sex, Demons, Dubious Consent, Erotica, M/M, Monster sex, PWP, Supernatural - Freeform, Violence, dubcon, explicit gay sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4673579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philtatos/pseuds/Philtatos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Elijah Territt is lost.’</p><p>After several years of nightmares, Elijah has finally had enough. He decides to head out into the woods outside the town of Willenshaven to confront his fears with little more than a torch and a backpack with food. But the old cottage holds more than just the answers he’s looking for.</p><p>There’s something waiting for Elijah.<br/>Something that has been waiting for him to return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heley's Haunt

**Author's Note:**

> Text copyright © by Weoulf Dietrich, 2014. All rights reserved.
> 
> All places and people in this story are entirely fictional and any similarities are unintentional and purely coincidental. No tentacle monsters were harmed in the making.
> 
> Please do not reproduce without written permission from the author.

1.

Like always, the nightmare began with the birds and ended with a void. Elijah almost saw it coming this time, just edging in at the corners of his vision, waiting for him to fully succumb to sleep. There was no use fighting it anymore – it would come. The birds were waiting for him.

A murder of crows sat on the branches of a eucalyptus tree, right in the middle of the bush. The trunk was grey-white and mottled with brown where it was beginning to peel, but what made it so singular to Elijah was its left side. The wood was seared completely black there and yet nothing else in the bush bore the same mark.

Elijah stood near the base of the eucalyptus, breathing in the sharp scent of the thin leaves, feeling the scratching dirt beneath his soles. Goosebumps prickled along his arms and the back of his though the air itself was dry with heat.

And the crows watched him, still as stones.

Somewhere from behind a branch snapped underfoot. Elijah shuddered but knew if he turned around now, he would not see anything except a wall of trees and impenetrable shadows. One of the crows flapped its wings. He did not have to wait long.

A breath ghosted over the juncture where his neck and shoulder met. Elijah winced, but he didn’t pull away. _Scorching_. Already, he could feel whatever little control he had on the dream beginning to slip away. Soon, he would turn around. He would fight against the urge to do so until sweat broke out on his slumbering body but to no avail. His nails would dig crescents into his palms while his dream-self moved.

The rest of the scenario would play out as it had every night since he was fourteen years old.

He turned and saw the tell-tale red hair of the demon first. The same shade as the sun rising, and thick as a mane. It smiled an awful smile made up of knife-teeth and rotting gums. The metallic tang of blood blotted out the eucalyptus. Elijah stifled a scream.

“I was wondering when you would come.”

_I didn’t want to come. I don’t want to be here._

Instead he said, “Hello, Forente.”

Elijah felt his arm move up against his will. He felt it – felt everything - with a strange hyper-awareness: the bones twisting in his wrist, the stretch of his fingers when he reached out to touch the demon’s face and stroke the sallow skin. Forente cocked his head into the touch and raised his own hand to feel Elijah’s heartbeat.

“I want you.”

Despite his fear, Elijah felt heat stirring in his lower abdomen. Slender hips pressed against his, the air doing nothing to abate the slow rise of his arousal. The figure in front of him was not unattractive, even if the trap-like mouth sent nausea roiling through him. Dark lashes framed onyx eyes. Lean limbs moved with extraordinary grace.

“I’ve been waiting for so long.”

Elijah didn’t notice when his pyjama top was torn off. It happened every time with such speed that the only indication it was gone was the strange heat branding his skin. But neither of them stopped the other as more clothes were discarded.

Soon they were naked and Elijah was on his back on the bush floor. Dry leaves and sticks dug lines into his back and shoulders. He felt his hips lift. His legs spread, rose, hooked and tightened around the red-head above him.

Arousal was thrumming through him, making his breathes come out in soft gasps. His skin was alight with sensitivity and nervousness. The man above him leant close, mouth obscenely wide in a grin. Elijah ached, his cock flushed, hard against his stomach.

“Ready?” Forente crooned.

Elijah’s breath hitched in his throat, but his mouth moved to form words he did not mean: “Of course.”

Forente seemed pleased with the answer either way and kissed Elijah. Blood bloomed on Elijah’s lip in an instant. The cut stung, but Elijah only licked the blood away.

Then the demon began to move his hips. Elijah sighed at the pressure, the friction, feeling himself begin to match Forente thrust for thrust. His fingers found their way through thick hair, tightening as his erection slid against Forente’s.

They rutted against each other with a sort of desperation now. Molten heat was pulsing through Elijah’s veins. His head was spinning with pleasure. A low, drawn out moan escaped him.

“Beautiful,” Forente panted, fingers twitching against Elijah’s waist where his palms were splayed against the ground, holding his torso up. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

“Don’t stop,” Elijah whined. His face was flushed a deep red, his eyes shut tightly. There were sparks behind his eyelids, and he bit the skin on his bicep when he tossed his head to the side. “Oh, I’m going to– _Ah_!”

He came first, back arching as the heat bordered unbearable, and felt a wet strip paint his chest. Forente wasn’t far behind him. With a guttural groan, he bit down hard on Elijah’s shoulder, tearing through the skin and flesh.

Elijah yelped, even as he knew that the bite was coming, the pain was still enough to make him see red and black spots when he opened his eyes from the shock. Blood was smudged across Florente’s lips and chin. It dripped down the long column of his throat.

Florente thrust twice more before stilling and drew in a great breath through his nose. Slowly, the post-orgasm haze was beginning to abate. Horror was already beginning to creep back; a sickening dread that followed the pleasure.

He saw the hole in his chest before he felt it. Then the blazing pain arrived as Florente drew back his arm, Elijah’s heart still pumping strong in his hand. Florente flashed his red grin and devoured it in two snapping bites.

 

 2.

 

Elijah Territt was lost.

 

As embarrassing as it was, there was no other way to describe his situation. He was lost with no foreseeable escape from his current predicament, and soon he would also be hungry and terrified. In the dark no less. Well, he supposed that he was already terrified and the pack on his shoulders would provide him some relief when the hunger came. At least, for a little while. For the night at most. _God_ , he hoped that he wouldn't be stuck here for the night. Was it possible that someone was already looking for him?

He wasn’t quite ready to bet good money on it.

Elijah sighed miserably, clutching the leather strap of his bag with cramping fingers. He admitted begrudgingly that it was his own fault for blundering into the god-forsaken bush on his own. The folks back in town _had_ cautioned him away, after all. If he was going to be belligerent and head into the dark cluster of trees despite the superstitious warnings, the least he could do was wait until dawn. The men at the pub, just below the inn he was staying in for the week, were more than willing to offer their services as guides - provided it was during the daytime. The same could not be said at night. In fact, when Elijah had first requested that they accompany him at sundown, all he received were some side-long glances and unintelligible muttering.

A piercing shriek startled Elijah from his brooding thoughts and he straightened his back, instantly alert. _What was that?_ The young man shifted uneasily in his spot, looking very much like a startled deer with his long legs and wide brown eyes. He was ready to bolt, his ears straining for any sign of an approaching predator.

Such a ghastly sound. It couldn't have been human - there was no way a person was capable of that kind of sound. And he didn't think there would be anyone else wandering about in the woods with him. Not if they were from the town. Elijah worried at his lip and threw a glance over his shoulder. He had to keep moving.

In which direction he was heading, he wasn't sure, but what did he have to lose? He was already without any tracking experience and he concluded that either he found his out of the woods - where every single tree looked the same - or he eventually found what he was looking for.

 _Or you could get yourself killed,_ a helpful voice in head supplied. _Before those townsfolk realise that the big city slicker that arrived a day ago never came back from his search._

Elijah scowled and banished the thought with a firm shake of his head. No. He had already decided.

“And Josh is going to believe me.”

Joshua Territt – ah, now wasn’t he just the epitome of perfect older brother? The rest of the family certainly thought so, and even Elijah was inclined to agree. Even if Josh was as smug as he was handsome, there was no denying that Josh was the one who had made into university. Josh was the one with a full-time job, the one with a promotion on the horizon, the tall, dark, and funny one. Josh was the hot-blooded heterosexual. Quite frankly, Elijah was ready to wipe the floor with his brother’s mocking grin.

Provided that he ever found his way out of the woods first.

He walked on, boots flattening dead leaves and skittering insects underfoot. In the quiet of the late evening - Elijah was sure it was late - everything seemed so surreal. It was as if the woods were part of another world, distant and isolated from the town that lay just over the hill. The air was colder too, dragging through his lungs like fingers of ice. The trees were pressed close, thick and intimidating. Bark peeled from their trucks, revealing dark wood. An abundance of leaves blocked out most of the night sky, but where they parted in odd patches, Elijah could see the burning, wheeling stars against a black sky. The moon itself was visible, large and perfectly round. A pale cratered face looming over him. It was a small comfort, barely illuminating his path.

Elijah had a torch, of course. A torch, matches, candles, and his phone – as useless as it was with no reception. But he would use them at the darkest part of the night. If he was going to try and overcome his fears, he would start with the dark.  

The young man had resigned himself to his fate: no one was coming for him, not tonight at least, and he doubted he would be able to find any real shelter.

Why had been so adamant to travel at night? Because he knew that the house of Old Heley could not be found during the day. It couldn't. This he knew for certain. Cameras didn’t work on it, and every sketch he’d tried his hand at had mysteriously gone missing or was thrown away by a cleaning parent. There was something wrong with that house. Very wrong.

Elijah stopped by a boulder and leaned against it to catch his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Old Heley, or at least the stories of him, had always frightened and intrigued the Territt brothers. The town of Willenshaven had warned the children away from the woods, lest they stumbled upon the bitter man's home. Adults spoke about him in whispers, and though they ever only saw him thrice annually, they all knew he was there.

 _Predator,_ they said. Joshua had gone tight-lipped when Elijah asked what they meant but it was still him that suggested they look for the old man.

Josh had only chuckled at his Elijah’s appalled expression, throwing his arms around his brother’s shoulders. He pulled him close until his nose was almost in the younger boy's honey-blond hair. Elijah had been fourteen then, Joshua was nineteen. Elijah knew that his brother was playing dirty, but he had let himself fall for it. He would have done anything for Josh.

 _Not that anything has changed,_ he mused and kicked a loose stone over. He had been walking for what seemed like hours but he no longer felt tired. The trees were beginning to spread out again and Elijah clung to the quickly withering hope that he was making some sort of progress.

 _I'm doing this because I want Josh to believe me. To stop making fun of me when I tell him about the nightmares._ He was already twenty-two now. They were both adults.

The blond stumbled abruptly, his ankle rolling, and he cried out, more from the shock than pain. His hand shot out in an attempt to grab onto something - anything to keep him standing. Elijah’s fingers closed around a low branch but immediately lost his grip when something slammed into the back of his head.

He fell to the ground heavily, the breath in his lungs leaving in a painful rush. Yellow-orange leaves flew up around him, scattering in the wind. God! Shrill cries echoed around, seemingly out of nowhere. Elijah flinched as he peered up from his spot.

Dark, blurred shapes blew past him like a particularly strong gust of air, rattling him. Bats or birds? Had there been bats here? In Willenshaven? He could not remember seeing them as a boyand he certainly never spotted any in the city when his parents uprooted him and Josh from their small, provincial lives.

He looked up cautiously, only to be greeted by the sight of crows rushing by him as if being pursued by the Devil himself. It was like an unending black stream. Elijah shuddered and kept his body pressed against the decaying leaves and damp soil until the last of the scavengers passed by in a flurry of wings and glassy eyes.

When the last of their morbid caws finally passed, Elijah stood shakily to his feet, only to feel a throbbing pain in his ankle. He winced. Damn – twisted. The last thing Elijah needed was to be lost, hungry, terrified, _and_ injured. He wanted to keep going, trekking blindly maybe, but moving. But the pain was sharp and Elijah could feel all his stress and tension finally beginning to take its toll on him. He wanted to cry. He would have if Josh's laughing face, hazel eyes wide with mirth, hadn't floated into his mind's eye.

No. He _couldn't_ cry. Elijah blinked rapidly to dispel the tears.

 

But he had cried.

That time.

  

 3.

 

_It sat in a clearing, dilapidated and seemingly empty save for the long trail of smoke streaming steadily from the crooked chimney on a slanted roof. A foul stench permeated the heavy wet smells of the land._

_The place seemed to be made of wood and glass only, not brick and tile like the other houses in town. Moss covered its walls and ivy wound itself over the porch and upstairs balcony. The windows were dusty; smudge, barely transparent. Some were boarded. Others revealed nothing aside from frayed yellow-stained curtains._

_Josh and Elijah had been separated by accident. Josh, ever ready to play leader but remained a big brother, made Elijah promise to stay close to him. He even offered the boy his hand whenever the ground became too rocky or the trees became confusing. It was only when Josh missed a step and fell from an alarming height into a small ravine hidden by fallen branches that they were parted. Elijah had called repeatedly to his brother, his panic escalating. When he received no response, the younger Territt boy leapt to his feet and bolted the way they had come with the intention of finding help. He knew he would be in trouble - children were not supposed to wander about in the bush alone, even if Josh was already considered a man. But he was hurt – or worse._

_He ran franticly, leaping over roots and rocks, until finally he realised he had no idea where he was. The boy stopped to look about him in bewilderment and found himself before a house that he was certain they never passed. Surely they would have noticed, and surely Josh would have insisted they investigate it._

_At first, Elijah was relieved. He could find help for Josh, he thought. But as he approached the place, its wretched appearance quickly became obvious. And the fourteen year old boy felt sickening terror in his gut as he realised that this place, this house, was Old Heley's. It must have been. There were no other houses out here in the woods, and the closest town to Willenshaven was a two-day ride by wagon._

_Elijah had half the mind to turn back and seek help elsewhere, though he was well-aware of the sky beginning to darken from purple to a deep navy blue. Night was coming, faster than he anticipated, and he couldn't bear to leave Josh alone - maybe hurt - any longer. So Elijah mustered all his courage and crossed to the porch's crooked steps, climbed to the faded door, and knocked._

_No answer._

_Elijah frowned. Perhaps they hadn't heard him. Raising his knuckles once more, Elijah rapped on the wood with determination. The sound was in time to his heartbeat._

_The door swung open._

_A gust of smoke slammed into his face and Elijah gave a hacking cough as he tried to expel it from his lungs. It was horrid air - a burning, wretched stench that clogged the sense._

_The interior was just as neglected and unwelcoming as its exterior. Plaster and mouldy floral wallpaper peeled from the walls in long thick strips. Dust coated everything from the squat tea-table laden with cracked, unwashed plates and glasses. A bookshelf choking with leather-bound volumes untouched for many years leaned precariously to the left. The sofa in the centre of the room may have been ornate once, but now the frame was broken and any intricacies carved into it were faded and lost to time. Rats and mice made their homes in its fabrics._

_To his right, there was a staircase that lead into darkness and the wall held a single photograph that was obscured by dirty glass, but he could make out a face with dark, hooded eyes and a thin, solemn mouth. A pale boy with hair as red as fire._

_To his left, a green door with flaking paint. Only a lush Persian carpet - all deep blues, rich reds and gold - appeared to be of any value and it was almost obtrusive in its beauty._

_In the dust on the floorboards, shuffling footprints led into what Elijah guessed to be the kitchen. Further in, he could hear movement: the drag and scrape of a chair against linoleum and the tinkle of cutlery falling from counter-height. Elijah swallowed._

_“Hello?”_

_For a long moment, the sounds of scraping and falling continued. Something shattered. Someone cursed._

_Desperation began to gnaw at him, making his insides cramp._

_“Please, if there’s someone there…I-I need help.”_

_Elijah stepped inside and noticed with a vague sort of interest that his own footprints were now mingling with the ancient ones. If anyone inside heard him enter, there was no sign. He began to cross the room to the kitchen where he could still hear movement. The arching, open doorway seemed to loom ominously as he approached and it was only the thought of Joshua that propelled Elijah forward through it._

_There was the strange sensation of time slowing as his foot passed the line between the living room and the kitchen. Bizarrely, Elijah saw himself first. An out-of-body experience._

_He saw his eyes glued to the linoleum floor first, taking in the trail of broken pieces, forks, a rusting butcher’s knife, spoons. A red trail stretching from one of the room to the other. Flies buzzed over lumpy bits piled randomly around the kitchen; seeping things that sent waves of nausea over him and turned his mouth dry._

_Then he watched his own face screwing up as the stench grew stronger here, almost sickeningly, sticking to his skin like a leech. He could feel heat - scorching and dry. It was coming from an old wood-fire oven that was blazing, blazing, blazing. His hands, small and tawny, clutched the door-frame tightly as he tried to take in the scene before him as a whole. Brown eyes bulged and pink lips pulled back over teeth in a scream of horror._

_Old Heley, for it was Heley without a doubt, stood before him. He was as ancient as an oak and obscenely hunched. But it was not time that twisted his body into itself, that gnarled his fingers into tight claws and made his head protrude from his thin neck in a way that reminded Elijah of a tortoise. Wild eyes rolled in their sockets - not unseeingly, but still without focus. Severe lines mingled with scars on his heavy, sagging face and his bottom jaw jutted out almost over his top lip. No, this was the work of corruption in him._

_And in his arms._

_God - what was that he held in his arms?_

_Elijah, in his terror, could not understand what he was looking at. It was thin and sickly; skin and bone covered in the same red substance that painted the ground. Lank black hair trailed past its sharp, sharp shoulders and its head hung back at an impossible angle, exposing a white neck with a gash so deep and wide that whatever held the head to it was barely more than a thread. So emancipated and covered in filth was it that Elijah could not tell what sex it was, despite its nakedness._

_The sight sent him retching._

_Then, he was back in his own self, sick with the taste of bile in his mouth. Blood and meat and their sweet carrion smell almost sent him to his knees as a final blow, but the thought of kneeling in the muck before him kept him upright. A low moan fell from his lips._

_Only then did Heley’s eyes stop their random searching to rest on Elijah Territt. The red string of fate wound itself around their gazes, pulling taut as soon as the windows to their souls opened to the other._

_Elijah screamed. The shrill piercing sound tore itself from his throat and punctured the air between them like a blade. Old Heley dropped the body, startled. It fell to the ground with a dull thud, limbs splaying, head lolling dangerously. Elijah screamed again, the sound mounting into a despairing wail._

_Heley uttered a shriek in reply. A furious sound. He turned to Elijah with stuttering movements and began to spit incoherently, ambling towards the boy._

_What his intentions were, Elijah did not stay to find out._

_The blond spun on his heel and began to run. He caught his toe once on the Persian carpet and crushed a saucer under him as he pounded his way out of Heley’s cottage. As he passed the staircase, he experienced the strange out-of-body perspective he had in the kitchen threshold briefly. It was like a flash of a vision._

_There was something sitting half-way down the stairs with hair like fire, watching him, like a flickering shadow in his peripherals._

 4.

Elijah woke with a start, head pounding and heart racing.

He had dreamed, though it was fading quickly. Not that it mattered. He had been dreaming of Old Heley's home and he would never, never forget _that._ The stench, the smoke, the congealing blood…That was seared into his very being. A part of who he was.

As was Forente.

It was not the smoke that clogged his senses now, but the smell of rotten wood and dust. His airways were clogged with the latter, but he was almost grateful for the reassurance it provided. Death was not in the air here. Only the evidence of time.

Elijah sat up and felt his joints creak as he pushed his torso up. He looked about his surroundings. His addled brain registered that he was no longer outside. Leaves stuck to his clothes and hair, but beneath his fingers were wooden floorboards.

When had he fallen asleep? All he remembered was limping his way through the forest, wary of bats and birds, and worse things. And he had been thinking about Josh again.

 Perhaps he should have asked his brother to accompany him. Perhaps he should have come back after slamming the door instead of leaving the city the next day for Willenshaven.

Perhaps it was time to forgive him for his years of laughter and disbelief.

Though Elijah could have never known it, Joshua Territt simply did not have the talent to see beyond his reality. As thin as the veil was, the dead were dead and the yawning darkness that waited to seep into his world was kept at bay by his sheer ignorance.

There was no light, save for the moon and stars outside. The only things Elijah could make out were the silhouettes of things - a couch with an ornate frame, a low table, a bookcase. Some of the windows had planks of wood nailed across them and the curtains looked as if they had been shredded by some sort of animal.

Fear lodged itself in his throat. Whatever had done its work on the curtains apparently had very long and very sharp claws. Fierce and vicious. Belatedly, Elijah thought of his pack, which was lying beside him. It showed no signs of being tampered with although one of its straps had been torn in half. He must have broken it before he had passed out.

Sliding the bag closer to him, Elijah reached inside to check that nothing was missing. As he pushed aside a spare shirt and a sandwich wrapped in brown paper, his fingertips brushed along a hard, leather case at the bottom of the pack. A hunting knife in its sheath, lent to him by his mother. He saw no need for a gun and besides, trying to get one in Australia was worth more hassle than this trip was supposed to be. 

 Besides, he had never planned to actually use it. The worst thing Elijah expected was a poisonous snake, which the country had no lack of. What had torn the curtains, however, Elijah couldn’t even begin to guess.

He pushed the hunting knife and continued to rummage until he found what he was looking for: his torch. He wanted to see where he was exactly.

 _How did I even get here?_ Elijah shivered. _Who brought me here –_

_Was this Heley’s home?_

Elijah felt his heart stutter as the thought came. No, no, no. Surely not. There was no way. Except the idea stuck and Elijah’s body was simultaneously too hot and too cold. Perhaps someone had found him and brought him inside. The place looked to be abandoned but that meant nothing in the bush.

Sleepwalking was plausible. He had been susceptible to that, even before the incident. Or he could have lapsed into some sort of daze. A half-trance state. Maybe he hit his head.

Was this Heley’s home?

He would find out.

The torch was almost blinding when he clicked it on. Its momentary radiance was short-lived, however. Once Elijah’s eyes finally adjusted to light, it was still barely enough to pierce through the heavy shadows. He blinked, driving the colourful spots dancing in front of him away.

 

And as the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, so was Elijah’s carefully preserved reality. No rocks split and no earth shook to reveal dead saints that would march into Willenshaven. But Elijah, in that moment, saw beyond the world and into another. Just a glimpse – a flash of inferno. Then the gash closed in a whirlpool of black and all he could see was the figure standing before him.

Forente smiled at him.

Elijah screamed.


End file.
